Mistakes Of A Volunteer and A Dead Guy
by Alilee
Summary: I’m pretty sure it started out as a joke. Then again, with Grissom, I can never really tell. The more outrageous it sounds, the more likely it is he’s serious. For example, telling me to hang off a second story roof by my shoelaces.


Disclaimer: Yes, la-di-da, Jerry Bruckheimer is God on Earth and owns everything except the characters I've created (Namely, Greg's extended family, for purposes of creativity)

Enjoy, all! Remember to review, but no flames. They will be used for an Ecklie-Burning ceremony. Maybe Hodges, if there's time.

Bye, all

Lee

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I'm pretty sure it started out as a joke. Then again, with Grissom, I can never really tell. The more outrageous it sounds, the more likely it is he's serious. For example, telling me to hang off a second-story roof by my shoelaces.

That was my error right there, you know. I freaking _volunteered_. He could have picked Hodges, the guy would've kissed his ass like always and done it. On second thought, no, Hodges is bigger than me. Shorter but he weighs more so that wouldn't work. Of course.

So I volunteered. Mistake one. Mistake two was telling Archie to tape it- gossip spreads like Ebola around the lab, so eventually everyone was bound to know. Mistake three was changing into my new sneakers beforehand. Mistake four involved Grissom's basic miscalculation; a, people aren't interested when one of their coworkers is dangling off the roof, and b, I wouldn't be enticed to wave to them.

The case of the week involved a teenaged boy who'd made several bad decisions, just as I had. One was getting incredibly stoned with his girlfriend. Two was trying to have sex on the roof with said girlfriend. She recovered and quickly decided being naked on a rooftop was silly. Ms. Weinstein went back downstairs and slept with her boyfriend's older brother- not at all silly in her mind.

However, Dylan (our vic) stayed on the roof. While masturbating, trying to work off some of the edge Ms. Weinstein had left him with, he managed to lose his balance and, wearing only his socks and shoes, pitch forward off the roof. Upon arriving at the scene, my only thought was 'where are his pants?'

But the story doesn't end there. If it had, I wouldn't have been on the roof to begin with. Damn you, Grissom and Dylan and the lovely Ms. Weinstein with her new boyfriend, Leon.

Dylan got his ankle caught on the roof, with his shoelaces wrapped around the gutter supports. He hung from the ledge like that for a while, according to Doc Robbins, and that's where the story gets interesting.

Dylan's ankle and laces were caught in such a way that, had he stayed still and called for help, he could have been safe for at least two hours before the stress was too much and he fell. According to Sara, who dangled a dummy equal to Dylan's weight off the gutter system over the back entrance until Ecklie started screaming that she was pulling down the gutters and getting water on his car. So, at least two hours.

So we have two options here. Dylan was, incidentally, hanging just outside the window to Leon's room. Seeing his girlfriend having wild, somewhat inventive sex with his big brother might have driven him to untie his own shoes, falling out of them and plummeting downwards to crash into his father's barbecue, ending life just as his mother says he would have liked to; with honey-mustard flavoring in his mouth. And splattered on most of his internal organs, I added at the crime scene. She didn't appreciate that.

Option number two involves Leon or the ever- innocent Ms. Weinstein untying his shoes for him in a misguided attempt to rescue him. Which, obviously, didn't work. Leon did the roofing, so we can't say there's any criminal reason behind his DNA being on the shingles. And, of course, Dylan's earlier adventure explains his girlfriend's presence. And her underwear.

But I digress. This all led up to me being on the roof with my laces wrapped around the downspout and my sneakers firmly wedged into the gutter. All Grissom said I had to do was reach for my ankles, see if I could free myself, and then he and Warrick would haul me back up. At the time, it seemed funny. I had a helmet on.

I'm the only one in the lab with a physical build similar to Dylan, the same height and roughly the same weight. So that's how I found myself suspended from the roof of CSI (the same company who did our gutters did the ones at Dylan and Leon's home, although ours have a substantially more reinforcement) and happily waving to most of the lab techs.

"Hello, fans! Hello, yes,I know, you love me! I'll be signing autographs after the show- see all you lovely ladies in my trailer!" I shouted. From below came an enthusiastic shouting, with Jacqui and Bobby playing a medley on kazoos.

So the lab techs occasionally get too much downtime. It's not every day I risk my life on a rooftop, and they weren't the types to sit around inside while I did it.

"Greg, stop messing around." Warrick had a hold on each of my ankles to make sure I didn't fall, "You're skinny, but not that skinny."

I started singing the national anthem, but the version I learned from my first real girlfriend. She was two years older and had blue hair and a lot of songs with dirty lyrics. The national anthem was our favorite- I can't explain it to you here, but it's a description of what can come of a drunken weekend in Aculpoco. Lovely story.

"Greg! Just untie yourself or we drop you." Funny that Grissom should say 'we', because as far as I know he was sitting behind Warrick with a video camera, doing nothing to keep me from falling. He thought we needed to document this, just in case Archie didn't catch everything with his own camera. The best part was that the tapes they made are still playing on the front-desk screensavers.

"Fine, keep your pants on." I began to reach towards my ankles, but a call from below made me stop.

"Mr. Sanders!" Ecklie yelled from somewhere in the vicinity of the parking lot. I couldn't really see, but I assumed he was towards the far left, where his parking spot was.

"Mr. Dickhead!" I said loudly enough for Griss and Warrick to hear, saluting. There were snickers from above, and I sincerely hoped Warrick had the sense not to let go.

"Get off the roof right now!" he practically screamed.

"It's an experiment, Conrad. The Malcolmson case." Grissom was standing, I could tell from his shadow.

"Off! Now!"

"Wait a second." I crunched upwards, straining to reach my shoes. I could just barely touch the soles of my sneakers. With a lunge, I reached up to grasp the laces. By extending my arms as far as I could, I barely managed to pull the laces from around the drainpipe.

"We're coming down." Grissom shouted to Ecklie, who (upside down) looked oddly like my aforementioned girlfriend. It must have been the blue socks.

"Shit! Shit, Grissom, Warrick, grab my ankles!" I yelled, or something along those lines, suddenly yanked back to the world that was revolving around my shoes. Which were, as I belatedly realized, the wrong size- specifically, one size too big. I'd hoped to break them in later. They were just so cool…but big. Big enough that without tied laces, I was slipping out of them.

There were two pairs of hands on my ankles at once, holding on very, very tight.

"Christ, he's heavy." Grissom grunted.

"I want out! Or up! Whatever!"

"Get a better grip on him, then pull," Warrick's fingers were digging into my ankles painfully, "One…two…"

I heard the roof door bang open with a sharp slamming noise, then I was, very rapidly, falling towards the level below. The metallic roofing rushed towards my face-

The last thing I heard before everything went dark was Hodges, yelling "I caught you!"

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So, I'm in the hospital. It's not serious. A broken femur, which needed minor surgery to fix, and some nasty bruises, but nothing that can't be cured with lots of love (HINT: Mama's cookies) and a bright green cast. Grissom says it's garishly ugly. I could say the same thing about him some days.

Catherine's doing the mothering thing. When I'm out- this afternoon- she says I'm going to be eating her specialty grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken soup for weeks, because she knows I'll starve at Nick's house otherwise.

Did I mention that? I'm staying with Nicky Stokes until I can walk again (the stairs to my apartment seemed so whimsical when I bought the place…) since he lives on the first floor of his building. But don't worry, the address here online is the same, just like every other time I move.

So I'm okay, just a bit banged up. Like the time I tried to sled on the barn roof, only with less poison ivy afterwards. I'm thinking about coming out sometime this summer, especially if Mickey and Alex bring their families. Does Mama still insist on calling them Mikhail and Aleksey? Because I've been getting her letters, addressed to a 'Gregory'. Strange woman, my mother.

The farm sounds good now, with all the family there. Hope everything's alright up there- say hi to Mickey, and Paige for me. Don't tell Mama I'm hurt all that bad, okay? She'll worry and get on a plane out to Vegas, which is one place I do not want to have Mama wreaking her own special brand of havoc on. I'll see you guys this summer.

Love, Greg

(P.S. Papa Olaf, the fact that the horoscope predicted a 'downfall in the workplace' for me last week means nothing. It was a big coincidence, really. Besides, the one for today says I should try to 'avoid fast-paced life'…Oh God, what if Nick's driving me home?)


End file.
